“Doing School” in a Different Way
The school year runs for 11 weeks in the fall, five weeks in the winter, and 10 weeks in the spring. Tuition for each session breaks down to about $65 per day, plus a supply fee. During the summer breaks, families travel, kids write snail-mail letters to each other, and parents plan meetups for their children at parks.
This unique setup helps kids and families form a creative, solid community, and “do school” in a different way. For my part, this model also lets me share with my daughter (and soon, her two younger brothers) some of the nostalgic aspects of my own childhood and education. I grew up in a small Midwestern town with a population just north of 1,000 residents. At the time, the town’s public school was thriving under the care of a strong and close-knit community. My elementary school teachers lived a block away, I saw our principal at the post office, and I could ride my bike home for lunch. The neighborhood kids walked to school together on a path through the woods we called the “magic trail.” At school, we were surrounded by a fascinating group of adults who were vastly different from one another yet pulled together to create and sustain a beautiful community for the next generation. When I grew into an adult and had kids of my own, I found myself yearning for this type of steady community for them, one that would foster their imagination.
As a public school kid who attended several public universities, studied abroad, and earned a master’s degree in library and information science, I never imagined myself homeschooling, but when Covid-19 hit, we pivoted. We found OVS and a different and dynamic way to educate our kids. Fall 2024 marks the beginning of our fourth year at the school.
The activities at OVS are many and varied. Students learn pickleball, soccer, and track-and-field sports. They make stained-glass projects and sketch live bunnies. The older kids take shop class, and some even start their own businesses. Last year, one group launched the before-school Village Coffee Co. in the parking lot. They created branding and banners and ran their own market-research questionnaires and ads. Watching parents and students order coffee through the drive-through and walk-up lanes was a lot of fun. Seeing these kids start and run a legitimate business was inspiring.
In cooking class, local private chef Sarah Lang leads students through the Global Passport to Cooking curriculum. Students learn about the cuisine and culture of another country by reading, listening to music, dancing, touching on the geography, culture, and history of the nation they’re studying, and learning a few words of the main language. Then everyone gets busy in the kitchen, chopping, stirring, seasoning—and eventually tasting—food from China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Mexico, France, Japan, and Italy. They clean up, too, taking turns washing utensils and cooking gear in sudsy water. They even served as recipe testers for Lang’s cookbook, which she published this year.
Students also venture away from their campus for field trips to baseball games, historic flour mills, hands-on electric circuit making, professional theater performances, living museums, orchestra concerts, and working farms. They can choose to enroll in separate activities such as French class and band outside of school hours. Older students take longer trips to Lake Superior and the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, where they learn about Native American cultures and challenge themselves on ropes courses high in the trees.
In the fall of 2025, OVS plans to extend its program to include students older than 14, though currently most kids who “age out” continue on the homeschool path through other academic co-ops, college and college-prep courses, or hybrid models of schooling. Others choose to enroll in public or private schools.
On the last day of school in the spring, my daughter slings her backpack into the car with mud on her legs, her face warm with sunshine, and tears in her eyes. She’s not ready for this type of learning to end—even if it’s just to take a break. The community and the rolling hills have become a sanctuary of safety, adventure, learning, challenge, growth, friendship, and so much laughter. A village. A fairytale come to life.
